Nature Communications (Dec 2018)

The open-ocean missing backscattering is in the structural complexity of particles

  • Emanuele Organelli,
  • Giorgio Dall’Olmo,
  • Robert J. W. Brewin,
  • Glen A. Tarran,
  • Emmanuel Boss,
  • Annick Bricaud

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07814-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Particulate optical backscattering is key to studying the oceanic carbon pump though it remains unclear what particles are detected. Here the authors show that complex particles larger than 1 µm help reproduce all the measured backscattering across the Atlantic Ocean and explain the majority of the signal.